Application specific congestion control for data communication (ACDC) is an ongoing 3GPP study in which service requirements are specified in order to allow or prohibit certain applications from initiating or maintaining communications in mobile networks. These service requirements can be defined by operators and/or be subject to regional regulations. ACDC is particularly of interest when network traffic congestion necessitates prioritizing some transmissions over others. Congestion control is typically accomplished at the mobile device level. For example, access class barring can be used to reduce congestion in a radio access network by denying access to a selected percentage of mobile devices. However, access class barring does not have the granularity to control the use and network access of specific types of applications operating on mobile devices.
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended.